As the maritime sector embraces more technology to increase efficiency, lower carbon emissions, and adapt to meet modern challenges, cyber and cyberphysical safety become a more significant issue. However, unfortunately, much of past research view cyber-security issues in transportation as primarily information technology problems. This paper designs and uses a case study to illustrate how cyber-security and physical safety should be viewed together, cyber and physical (i.e. cyber-physical), when considering ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore interactions. While there is some scenario designing, this case study is built with real port data and ship systems to demonstrate a real-world cyber-attack on a ship. It shows plausible physical effects that affect the safety of those involved. This case study is also made realistic with a novel hybrid cyber range and hardware testbed environment, designed to examine the different effects a ship-based cyber-attack could potentially have on a port. This informs several solutions, technical and social, that could enhance cyberphysical safety in marine transportation.
Many maritime activities, such as loading, unloading and transporting cargoes, consist primarily of long periods of low-stress, with some moments of high stress during complex manoeuvres or unanticipated, dangerous, incidences. The increase in autonomy provided by machines and AI is beginning to take over certain tasks in the maritime sector, to reduce costs and mitigate human error. However, with the current levels of autonomous technology available, legislation, and public trust in the technology, such solutions are only able to remove majority of tasks associated with low-stress periods. In fact, many current remote control solutions still suggest relying on human operators to deal with the complex situations AI struggle with. Such a human-automation relationship could endanger the human element. The concern is that, if the human user is spending a disproportionate part of their time dealing with multiple, unconnected, high-stress tasks, without periods to de-stress, this could increasingly put workers at risk. This paper seeks to highlight potential technical, social, and mental, issues that may arise as the sector begins implementing semi-autonomous and fully autonomous maritime operations.
The introduction of a transponder-based ship identification system may have far-reaching effects on the way navigation is carried out. Fundamental changes to the underlying principles of collision avoidance become a reality, offering the potential for a new set of sailing and anticollision rules that allow unprecedented levels of control for maritime traffic.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.